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Submission + - Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed into E (scientificamerican.com)

PolygamousRanchKid writes: Seaweed may well be an ideal plant to turn into biofuel. It grows in much of the two thirds of the planet that is underwater, so it wouldn't crowd out food crops the way corn for ethanol does. Because it draws its own nutrients and water from the sea, it requires no fertilizer or irrigation. Most importantly for would-be biofuel-makers, it contains no lignin—a strong strand of complex sugars that stiffens plant stalks and poses a big obstacle to turning land-based plants such as switchgrass into biofuel.

Researchers at Bio Architecture Lab, Inc., (BAL) and the University of Washington in Seattle have now taken the first step to exploit the natural advantages of seaweed. They have built a microbe capable of digesting it and converting it into ethanol or other fuels or chemicals. Synthetic biologist Yasuo Yoshikuni, a co-founder of BAL, and his colleagues took Escherichia coli, a gut bacterium most famous as a food contaminant, and made some genetic modifications that give it the ability to turn the sugars in an edible kelp called kombu into fuel.

Comment Re:linear algebra (Score 1) 583

Sounds like your studying an engineering degree (civilingenjör) :) The reason for the physics and other "unrelated" courses in almost all MSc level engineering degrees in Sweden is to provide breadth. You are supposed to know a little about everything along with your main subject and be able to tie it all together. I suspect (or at least hope) it's the same in other countries. Another point is to learn to be a good learner. When you get out of uni and start working you will most likely not work with the exact thing you studied. You will be expected to learn new things and build on what you've already know.
Android

Submission + - Xoom Corporation Wants Motorola Tablet Renamed (blogspot.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Xoom Corporation, an online payment company from Northern California, spoils today's launch party for Motorola's Android-based Xoom tablet. Wielding a trademark first registered in 2004, the e-payment provider asks a US district court for an injunction: a permanent one as well as an interim injunction that would disrupt the iPad competitor's launch. The FOSS Patents blog obtained the complaint and looked at the relevant trademark registrations. Its author, Florian Mueller, believes Motorola knew about Xoom (which owns the Xoom.com domain that belonged to a free web hosting company in the 1990s) all along and may believe there's no overlap between the markets in which both players operate. But Mueller considers it 'likely that many consumers will use the Xoom tablet for online transactions' and believes a company that received more than $50 million of venture capital (some of it from an early-stage Apple investor) isn't just your average 'troll'.

Submission + - Court rules Against Studios in Piracy Case (theage.com.au) 1

skirmish666 writes: The giants of the film industry have lost their appeal in a lawsuit against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today.
The appeal dismissed today had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.

Education

New Study Links Video Games and Mental Problems 306

eldavojohn writes "A new study published today in Pediatrics Journal conducted in Singapore on three thousand children in grades third, fourth, seventh and eighth claims that one in ten are video game addicts and almost all of those suffer mental health problems. This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer. Among the accusations from the study are that playing video games leads to lower school performance and fewer social skills while exacerbating existing depression, anxiety and social phobias. Gamasutra reports that the Entertainment Software Alliance is already criticizing this study, saying, 'Its definition of "pathological gaming" is neither scientifically nor medically accepted and the type of measure used has been criticized by other scholars. Other outcomes are also measured using dubious instruments when well-validated tools are readily available. In addition, because the effect sizes of the outcomes are mainly trivial, it leaves open the possibility the author is simply interpreting things as negatively as possible.' It seems that the doctors are still disagreeing on whether or not gaming causes problems."

Comment Europa Universalis 3 (Score 1) 418

This can be pretty challanging even in single player if you play as a one of the more difficult countries. I would however recommend starting out with one of the easier countries as the learning curve can be a bit steep. There's quite a few concepts to keep track of in the game and if you're unlucky you'll end up as a one province vassal to France or something the like. Once you get the hold of it you can start setting your goals higher and higher. Or just do crazy things like playing as Ming and explore your way to Euroupe with the goal of converting all the members of the Holy Roman Empire to confucianism :)
And it gets even better in multiplayer with a few friends, provided you can get them all together for a few hours of play each night.

Also, as someone posted above: EVE online.

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